NASA has awarded Intuitive Machines of Houston approximately $47 million to deliver a drill combined with a mass spectrometer to the Moon by December 2022 under the agencyâs Commercial Lunar Payload Services initiative. The delivery of the Polar Resources Ice Mining Experiment known as PRIME-1 will help NASA search for ice at the Moonâs South Pole and, for the first…
Read More
NASA has selected 14 American companies, including several small businesses, as partners to develop a range of technologies that will help forge a path to sustainable Artemis operations on the Moon by the end of the decade. U.S. industry submitted the proposals to NASAâs fifth competitive Tipping Point solicitation, and the selections have an expected combined award value of more…
Read More
A large asteroid will pass Earth at more than 11 times the moonâs distance on November 29, 2020 and will approach our planet more closely in later flybys. 2000 WO107 is an asteroid, classified as near-Earth object and potentially hazardous asteroid of the Aten group. It was discovered on 29 November 2000, by astronomers of the Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research at the Lincoln Laboratory’s Experimental Test Site near…
Read More
Veteran NASA astronaut Barry âButchâ Wilmore will join astronauts Mike Fincke and Nicole Mann for NASAâs Boeing Crew Flight Test, the inaugural crewed flight of the CST-100 Starliner launching to the International Space Station in 2021. Wilmore will take the place of Boeing astronaut Chris Ferguson on the flight test as part of NASAâs Commercial Crew Program. Ferguson decided…
Read More
While advancing its Artemis program â which includes sending the first woman and next man to the lunar surface in 2024 â NASA wants to know what you would pack for a trip to the Moon. The agency kicked off a new social media campaign this week asking participants to share what would be in their lunar suitcases online using…
Read More
2020 SO is a tiny near-Earth asteroid or artificial object discovered by the Pan-STARRS1 survey at the  Haleakala Observatory on September 17, 2020. It is currently approaching Earth and its nominal trajectory indicates that it will be temporarily captured by Earth by  October 15, 2020. It will enter via the outer Lagrange point L2 and exit via Lagrange point L1. During its geocentric orbit around Earth, 2020 SO will make a close approach to Earth around…
Read More
SpaceX is targeting Monday, October 5 at 7:51 a.m. EDT, 11:51 UTC, for its thirteenth Starlink mission, which will launch 60 Starlink satellites to orbit. Falcon 9 will lift off from Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Falcon 9âs first stage previously supported launch of Crew Dragonâs first flight to the International Space Station with NASA…
Read More
A Northrop Grumman Cygnus resupply spacecraft is on its way to the International Space Station with nearly 8,000 pounds of scientific investigations, technology demonstrations, commercial products, and other cargo after launching at 9:16 p.m. EDT Friday from NASAâs Wallops Flight Facility on Wallops Island, Virginia. The spacecraft launched on an Antares rocket from the Virginia Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceportâs Pad…
Read More
SpaceX is targeting Friday, October 2, for a Falcon 9 launch of the GPS III Space Vehicle 04 mission from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The 15-minute launch window opens at 9:43 p.m. EDT, or 01:43 UTC on October 3.  Following stage separation, SpaceX will land Falcon 9âs first stage on the âJust Read the…
Read More
NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy, currently aboard the International Space Station, will answer questions posed by high school students from across the nation this week. The educational downlink event will air live at 10:25 a.m. EDT Friday, Oct. 2, on NASA Television and the agencyâs website. Cassidy will answer prerecorded questions selected from high school students participating in the Society…
Read More